New Year and new projects

Happy New Year to my followers and to the many people that pass through my blog. I hope you all had a good Christmas, ours here was a very quiet affair as always, the big day itself included a trip up into the mountains, a little tradition my daughter and myself have. This year the scenery was even more spectacular than usual with the heavy snow we'd had, so I make no apologises for all the photo's on this post. The first 4 photo's were taken just before Christmas in and around Anglesey after a night which dropped 10" of snow on us, which was very unusual for here.

After two weeks of having all my art and craft stuff tidied away, I always find it hard to get back into creative mode, so the time has been spent turning out cupboards and drawers and tidying them up, something that was well over due lol. One job I really enjoyed doing was the large cupboard in my front room which stores most of my arty crafty stuff. This was a job I'd been dying to do for ages, but I needed to have the sliding doors off it, so as my son was floating around I got him to get them off ....which trust me isn't an easy job !!! Now everything is all sorted labelled and tidied up and for someone that's natural untidy I'm getting a lot of pleasure of being able to see exactly whats what and where for a change lol.

My latest project is going to be a painting for my bathroom which is going to get decorated at long last. This is the only room that hasn't been decorated since we moved in just over 12 months ago. The delay was caused by us not being able to decide what colour to do it and not having the money to do it either. But the arrival of a bill I was dreading ( gas and electric )has come and gone, and I was really pleased that I had managed to save enough to pay it !! So the extra cash I'd put to one side incase this bill was even higher than I thought, can now be used to decorate the bathroom. The colour is going to be a bright lime green which will contrast nicely with the black tiles in there. I'm going to do an abstract painting in there, but I'll also be using copper wire, glass tiles and goodness knows what else on it, as I want it to have the wow factor.

Anyway enough waffle from me, here's the photo's I mentioned earlier.

Cable Bay



Hermon



Two photo's of a mass of icicles in Cable Bay





Snowdonia





These icicles were huge at least 6or7ft and very thick.



A stream that produced some very unusual ice formations.

Whoops there goes another week !!

Yet again time has flown by, and a whole week has gone without me updating my blog ...whoops !!

It's been a pretty productive week though, I managed to get the large oil painting I was doing finished at last, and up on the front room wall. I decided to add some small glass tiles to it so that it fit in even better with my front room, and I'm pretty pleased with the end result I have to say. I also carried on doing another project I started a while ago before my motivation left me. This time it's a half sized violin which I'm decorating with an assortment of tempered glass, stained glass and tiny seed beads. This is a pretty fiddly mosaic as the violin has such acute curves on the sides, so I have to do a little and then wait while the glue dries, very annoying lol. I've also got an idea for a 2nd oil painting I want to do for another wall in the front room.

I had a lovely day yesterday, a friend of mine Bee and her son H, who live in Liverpool came to visit for the day. As she's very fond of ancient momuments, we went to see the burial chamber Bryn Celli Ddu near Llandaniel. My lack of mobility stopped me from getting right to it sadly. Afterwards we stopped off at Cable Bay for a picnic, and then on to Rhosneigr where we spent a pleasant hour or two. While we were there a couple of horses with rigs made an appearance, so that was a nice photo opportunity for me.

Anyway here's the oil painting in situ



My friend Bee and her son H.



The horses and rigs at Rhosneigr beach.

Real Life !!

Real life has again taken me away from my blog, the seemingly never ending stream of jobs to do round the house, has limited me to an hour or two on the pc.

Wallpapering the hall eventually got finished, and for now it'll have to do. It's not perfect by any means as the coating over the plaster is very uneven and shows through my wallpapering which wasn't too bad considering it's been years since I did any. I'm hoping after a while I just won't see the unevenness, as I really don't want to have to do it again. I started painting it yesterday ...with a 2.5" brush as the paint pad we'd been using up to now, seemed to have vanished into thin air !! It took me most of the afternoon to do 2/3rds of the walls, hopefully I'll get the rest finished today.

My oldest daughter and her family came to visit over the weekend. As it was very windy on the Saturday we went off to take some photo's at various beaches. We went to Newborough beach first and was appalled to see that it had gone up from £2 to £3 to visit this beach, I can't see how they justify this price rise, but we had a good time while we were there. From there, we went to a smaller beach called Cable Bay as we expected the sea was very rough and there were loads of surfers there. Next was Rhosneigr beach and we watched wind surfers doing their stuff !! Lots of photo's were taken and 4 of my favourite ones I'll put on the end of this post.

On Monday some plants were offered on my local Freecycle or Freegle as it's now known. As I want to add to my small collection I wrote asking for them and was very happy to get an email to say I could share them with another lady. We duly set off to pick them up, only to get there and have the lady say " Oh I know you !! " It turned out she followed my blog lol, and I follow hers...small world isn't it. We really enjoyed seeing this lady's garden, as it was one of those quirky ones that had lots of different corners packed full of interesting plants and weird and wonderful containers. This lady is also a fan of car boots like myself, so while we chatted about them my daughter enjoyed having a nose in a very cleverly converted summer house, which was wallpapered with old newspaper clippings. As I know Vicky will probably read this at some some point, thanks again Vicky and we loved your garden. Do pop along to Anglesey Alsorts to read Vickys blog.

Some seaweed that had lovely rainbow coloured bubbles


This is a garden we pass to go to Rhosneigr beach, it always makes me smile.


Some wind surfers at Rhosneigr beach



Surfers taking advantage of rough sea's at Cable Bay

Loving this weather

I'm loving this gorgeous weather we've been having this last few days. I spent yet another day yesterday sitting in my back garden, alternating between doing some more on the mosaic mirror, reading and just sun bathing, what more could I ask.

My long lost friend Sharron arrived last night, and made it in double quick time too. We spent all last night, catching up on each others news barely pausing for breath lol !! She hasn't changed a bit looks wise, but her once broad Leicestershire accent has gone with only a slight twang of it now and then. Lovely lady that she is, she offered to take me out for a meal today, but I said if it was ok with her I'd much rather go for a drive round some of the island, something I haven't done for quite a while now, due to lack of money for petrol for my daughters car. So later on we'll be taking a tour to Porth Daffach, Treaddur Bay, Rhosneigr, Cable Bay, Aberfraw and Maltreath, my favourite places on the island. Followed by a visit to the glass gallery in Llanfairpg if it's open, to scrounge a cuppa off Mike. So hopefully some nice photo's for tomorrows blog.